keywords: Nuclear War

The nonviolent Jesus was born into abject poverty to homeless refugees on the outskirts of a brutal empire. Two thousand years later, the world remains stuck in the same cycle. America's military presence in Australia could mark the beginning of the end for that hallowed land.

He presided over a starving nation, created an unstable nuclear state, and terrified his neighbours. But the death of Kim Jong-il should cause neither terror nor concern as much as the experts would have it.

Given the leakiness of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, it is scarcely surprising that Australia is not concerned about the possibility of breaching it in selling uranium to India. If the world is serious about developing real safeguards against nuclear proliferation, the treaty needs to be replaced, not ignored.

Iran's Islamic regime has been showing signs of fatigue. But threats of sanctions and military action by the international community, prompted by reports that Iran has been designing nuclear weapons, could be its saviour. The regime thrives on this kind of tension.

Around 97 per cent of climate scientists actively publishing in peer-reviewed literature support the thesis that human activities are causing climate change. Cardinal George Pell's position is not an informed scientific view, but is driven by politics.

A lot of people refused to leave. Sydneysiders with waterfront properties could not fathom that the mansions that had cost them millions of dollars were going to be under water. There were stories of eastern suburbs socialites loading their antiques into boats. And drownings. Lots of drownings.

Obama and NATO have been lucky that this campaign has worked thus far. To participate in a brutal civil war is always a dangerous game of chance. So far, the rebels have limited their bouts of revenge to arson and looting. A blood bath has not ensued, at least not yet.

All too often anxiety trumps reality. In Melbourne in recent years, we received emails from friends overseas worried that we might be affected by the Queensland floods or NSW bushfires, hundreds of kilometres away. Japan has problems, but Japan it is not a disaster zone.

Opponents of workplace regulation are well-resourced and powerful. In order to meet them head-on, the Government must do more than invoke the value of hard work. After all, if work automatically confers great dignity, what does it matter that conditions are unsatisfactory?

It is a weakness of human nature that we forgive in our friends what we despise in our enemies. If Germany or Japan had achieved a nuclear weapon and launched it on an Allied city, our condemnation would be unrelenting.

The difficulty is not his privately-held heterodox views on climate change, but that Australia's most senior Catholic clergyman vigorously advances a position that could be interpreted as a statement of the official stance of the Catholic Church in Australia.

The Scottish National Party government has rid Scots of the sense of inferiority hammered into them by the British state. Australians, given their outrage over the banning of The Chaser's royal wedding commentary, know something of how this feels. The British state is past its use-by date.